Quote from: BedrockBrendan;7523624E itself was arguably built around complaints common on rpg forums at the time. I think forums can provide a useful window but you have to be careful because they don't necessarily reflect the opinions of the majority of gamers (in most game groups I have been in lije 1 in 4 or 5 guys are regular forum posters).

Yep. Theory-wanks endlessly carped on pre-4E D&D as broken because of LFQW, boring fighters, etc, and fostered a forum meme that the game needed to be redesigned from the ground up to balance it. WotC made the mistake of believing those attitudes expressed on forums were widely held among the D&D player base. They were wrong.

Quote from: Haffrung;752372Yep. Theory-wanks endlessly carped on pre-4E D&D as broken because of LFQW, boring fighters, etc, and fostered a forum meme that the game needed to be resigned from the ground up to balance it. WotC made the mistake of believing those attitudes expressed on forums were widely held among the D&D player base. They were wrong.

Well they kinda had to choose what people to listen to, cause I remember others arguing against those things or stating they really weren't problems.

I also remember some of those folks not liking the actual changes made to address those complaints.

The exclusion of the middle here by so many - including Pundit - is kind of funny.

You see, it's not a case of "either you love 5e, forsaking all others, or you are actively trying to be a charop grognard destructoid bent on ruining it and shitting on Mike Mearls' works" -

I want the Starter Set to have included character building rules so it could make it in spaces that pen and paper RPGs have been out of for ages.  Places like Toys R Us.  Target.  Wal-Mart.  Retail spaces, where it'd be on game shelves again.  I think that could be a Good Thing.

But kids who're bought things from those shelves are very instant gratification especially if it's a birthday/holiday gift.  No character creation is very batteries-not-included, to me.

I am okay with "BNI" for the Starter Set.  For the sake of people starting D&D for the first time I would have liked to have seen the character creation rules in there.  I don't think it's the worst I just think it could have been better.  Get it?

I'm buying the starter set.  I'm going to try it.  I'm going to see where the playtests I played and the various L&L Columns condensed, and what they condensed to.  Do you 5Vengers get that?  Do you?  We don't want to see D&D fail.  We want it to do better.  Of course, acknowledging this doesn't get controversy ginned up, 1000+ message threads here, and bozillions of clicks on Pundit's blog so, in the name of generating traffic and having people look at him and look at his forums here, it's best to pretend that it's all about some bogeymen trying to kill 5e in the crib.  Right?

Also the people saying "WELL THERE WERE NO REAL CHARACTER CREATION RULES IN ANY OTHER STARTER D&D'S EITHER!" in reference to the Holmes edition of D&D, or Basic D&D edited by either Tom Moldvay or Frank Mentzer need to stop, because that's wrong and stupid.

Anyway, I doubt this will have any impact so screech on.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;752362(in most game groups I have been in life 1 in 4 or 5 guys are regular forum posters).

About one in twelve here. I easily post more in one week than the rest of my real-life crowd has posted in their entire collective lives.

Quote from: Saplatt;752380About one in twelve here. I easily post more in one week than the rest of my real-life crowd has posted in their entire collective lives.

Of the three big AD&D groups I've had in the last 14 years (first one lasted 3 or so years, second one 5, the other currently ongoing) and dozen or so convention AD&D games I've had I am literally the only person to be a regular forum poster, so that's ... psh, not including the conventions, 25-30 people?

So true.

Right now we just have what amounts to pieces of a puzzle and no idea what the final picture really is.

What all IS in the starter? What all IS in the online part? What IS the pack in adventure module and is it even a module?

Its like trying to decipher what the new Dungeon board game will be based just on the box cover.

At first I was a bit... vexed that it lacked the chargen.
Then I was kinda... meh, when it looked like the chargen was elsewhere.
But now after some thought it seems like it might actually be a potentially good idea. IF WOTC hasnt somehow botched it. I still think the chargen should be in the starter. But if the current set up is what it appears then I am fine with that and I am leaning heavily to get it.

REALLY wish they would just come out and say flat out whats what and whats where.

Quote from: Haffrung;752370I don't share the seething resentment towards WotC that so many RPG forum posters seem to have - I don't feel any emotions at all towards WotC (or any other company that makes things I buy). So the reflexive hostility and suspicion expressed towards a game that hasn't even been published yet, and which most of the critics didn't bother to playtest, strikes me as childish.

Well, you have a capitalist viewpoint of things. Nothing wrong with that. "I buy stuff that I like!" and it's sort of in a vacuum. Of course, that doesn't apply to everyone. In the lead-up to 4e, Wizards basically told fans of older editions "you are playing it wrong!!! try the new and shiny!!!" That didn't really go over too well with a fairly large contingent of older fans. I think it did permanent damage. I think that Wizards now needs to get more new blood into the game to make up for old blood that's gone, but it's no longer a one for one, it's more like a two for one. Many people are now diehard Paizo fans, never to return to Wizards. Others moved back to older editions/OSR games, never to return.

It cannot be underestimated how shitty they handled themselves in 2008. It's like they failed customer service 101. It's an uphill battle, which is why 5e better be good. Not for our sake, but for their sake.

Quote from: thedungeondelver;752378I want the Starter Set to have included character building rules so it could make it in spaces that pen and paper RPGs have been out of for ages.  Places like Toys R Us.  Target.  Wal-Mart.  Retail spaces, where it'd be on game shelves again.  I think that could be a Good Thing.

But kids who're bought things from those shelves are very instant gratification especially if it's a birthday/holiday gift.  No character creation is very batteries-not-included, to me.

Bolded for emphasis.

I have kids. The idea of jumping online for something compatible with what they are doing is a non-issue with people who were raised with computers and the internet being as ubiquitous as they are now.

A hybrid product, especially when we don't know exactly how it is going to roll out (is it a pdf? an online character gen? an app?) could be very strong with kids now, especially at a price point so low that parents don't balk.

People tend to forget that portion of getting kids in the game. Not everyone is having their starter box bought for them by that uncle who has a vested interest in gaming, like several people talked about here, who are all OK with paying 30 bucks for the starter set. But a lot of those kids are going to see it and ask their parents to buy it, or are going to be using their allowance.

I'll just say that if my kid asks for something that is 20 bucks that I don't know a lot about, I'm waaaay more likely to buy it than if its 30 dollars. Granted, there isn't a whole lot of hobby stuff I don't know a good bit about, but still.

Quote from: thedungeondelver;752383Of the three big AD&D groups I've had in the last 14 years (first one lasted 3 or so years, second one 5, the other currently ongoing) and dozen or so convention AD&D games I've had I am literally the only person to be a regular forum poster, so that's ... psh, not including the conventions, 25-30 people?

Yup. In nearly 20 years of gaming I've met EXACTLY 2 other people who posted on RPG fourms. Out of hundreds of gamers spread across 3 continents.

3 people, myself included.

Quote from: Endless Flight;752385It cannot be underestimated how shitty they handled themselves in 2008. It's like they failed customer service 101. It's an uphill battle, which is why 5e better be good. Not for our sake, but for their sake.

They made a new game. It was different from the previous game. Some people (and nerds in particular) get personally insulted at the idea that other people like different things than they like, or that the company they buy things from is making things for different tastes now*. Thats why you see expressions like 'slapped in the face'. It's an emotional grievance. I know companies are expected to manage these expectations and resentments. But I've also seen enough forum anger blasted at every option (more/less, heavy/light, new/old, big/small, fast/slow, etc. etc) to conclude it's largely impossible to avoid pissing off legions of geeks with change.

People who don't like something new still have the old. Especially with D&D, where every edition has mountains of material available for it, and where you can make up your stuff up forever.

* Anyone read tech forums when the iPad came out? It was ridiculed. Apple were absolute fucking morons. Why would anyone need a tablet when everyone already had a laptop and a smart phone? Who was going to buy the thing - especially at that price? The iPad was going to be a disaster. Now, I'm not a fan of Apple in general. But I ended up being one of the 10s of millions of people who love their iPad. And the experts and tech bloggers proved how badly out of touch they were.

Quote from: kythri;752337I didn't say it's a shitty game, but I did say it's a shitty RPG.

Well, I'm over three years into a fun 4e campaign; it's been successful for me. I would agree more with Rob that 4e makes a poor D&D game - and that's one reason WotC's 4e adventures are so bad. IME it makes a good fantasy superheroes game in the Marvel style, and it works best when played that way.

Quote from: Haffrung;752392They made a new game. It was different from the previous game. Some people (and nerds in particular) get personally insulted at the idea that other people like different things than they like, or that the company they buy things from is making things for different tastes now*. Thats why you see expressions like 'slapped in the face'. It's an emotional grievance. I know companies are expected to manage these expectations and resentments. But I've also seen enough forum anger blasted at every option (more/less, heavy/light, new/old, big/small, fast/slow, etc. etc) to conclude it's largely impossible to avoid pissing off legions of geeks with change.

And yet it shouldn't have been *that* different from 3.5, considering Pathfinder's success. If anything, they could have simplified 3.5 and made a "basic" Dungeons & Dragons, keeping the fans of 3.5 happy while satisfying the D&D-lite gamers. Paizo would have never gotten the traction that they did. How could they have screwed the pooch so badly?

Quote from: Emperor Norton;752389The idea of jumping online for something compatible with what they are doing is a non-issue with people who were raised with computers and the internet being as ubiquitous as they are now.

Y'know, this keeps getting said, yet it's being repeated over and over again to people that are active on an Internet RPG forum.

By their very nature, these are people that don't have a problem with jumping online for things - to the point that they're participants in a niche aspect of a niche hobby.

So, maybe there's something else there?

Quote from: S'mon;752398Well, I'm over three years into a fun 4e campaign; it's been successful for me. I would agree more with Rob that 4e makes a poor D&D game - and that's one reason WotC's 4e adventures are so bad. IME it makes a good fantasy superheroes game in the Marvel style, and it works best when played that way.

Yep. The early 4E adventures published by WotC would have made great AD&D or 5E adventures (if Hoard of the Dragon Queen isn't to my liking, I'll probably kick off my 5E campaign with a conversion of Thunderspire Labyrinth). But they're really poorly suited for a game where combats take 60-90 minutes. My 4E Essentials campaign has no more combat than my last AD&D game. The difference is a 5 hour session consists of 2.5 hours of exploration and roleplay, and 2 combats, instead of 2.5 hours of exploration and roleplay and 6 combats.

Quote from: kythri;752402Y'know, this keeps getting said, yet it's being repeated over and over again to people that are active on an Internet RPG forum.

By their very nature, these are people that don't have a problem with jumping online for things - to the point that they're participants in a niche aspect of a niche hobby.

So, maybe there's something else there?

You might also notice that plenty of people on forums are still anti-pdf, something I've never seen really from the younger crowd. Just because someone learns how to use forums, doesn't mean they are accepting of other digital offerings.